


The Multiverse

by swordcane91



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Beginning of Vibe, Metahumans, Multiverse as a Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-08 22:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13467459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordcane91/pseuds/swordcane91
Summary: Not everyone knew that the Multiverse was a sentient being, an entity capable of speech and emotion, a maternal figure who would always look out for her favorite child.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea pop into my head last year when Cisco faced off against Caitlin - the scene where he's holding his hand out, and you can hear the sound of his powers firing up (at least, that's what I'm assuming, cuz the sound shuts off when Cisco puts his hand down). Aiming this to be a set of chapters, switching between the perspectives of the Multiverse and Cisco.

_The multiverse_ …that was what they now called her, the humans working in that laboratory. An endless universe, filled with many different dimensions, parallel earths with diverging histories. All-seeing, all knowing, ever present. An apparently untouchable realm, a fiction, a theory, until the day the Yellow Man turned on the Particle Accelerator, ripped her open, and stole what was hers.

Pieces of her now coexisted within them, giving these people strengths, gifts, curses. She had turned the weak into titans, the cowardly into monsters, the slow into fast men who believed that the rules of reality were theirs to bend. She had witnessed the Yellow Speedster zip by, intent on slaying the Flash and altering history, and she had witnessed the Flash returning to that moment, believing that a simple “fix” could set things right.

Admittedly, she had become bitter. These humans used what had once been hers to create chaos – hardly any used their newfound powers for something fulfilling. She had ensured that the Flash and any other “metahuman” would never access the full strength of the multiverse.

And _that_ was when he came in. The first time he came, she hardly recognized him from the fractured child she had seen when the Particle Accelerator erupted. A mere boy compared to her endless years, but one so full of life and hope despite the hole in his chest.

“Where am I?” The boy turned a slow circle, staring at the vast blue space around him.

 _You are everywhere at once. The fabric of being_. Her voice echoed with projected calmness. Even so, she still managed to startle him.

“Who are you?!” His eyes looked down, his head shaking frantically. “Oh God. Oh God. Why is there a fricking _hole_ in my chest?!”

_Please stay calm, and don’t scream. Your voice can get rather -_

“Why should I?” he screamed, the panic in his words causing her to wince. “One second, I’m there with the Reverse Flash killing me, and the next, I’m here in this blue space with an imaginary voice telling me to stay calm!”

_I am not imaginary. I am simply beyond your capability of understanding._

The boy scoffed. “Well, invisible lady, if you’re beyond my ‘capability of understanding’, then why am I here? I think I’m _all_ about the understanding. Or just dead…dead and dreaming. Is this the afterlife?”

_Afterlife? I am afraid I am not familiar with this term._

To her surprise, the boy laughed, commenting on how funny she was. In all previous moments, he had called her creepy.  

Suddenly, a red line whipped past. She automatically reached out, enveloping his body, forcing him to slow for just a tiny bit, a little vengeful joke on her own behalf.

The boy’s eyes suddenly grew wide. “That’s him! Look, I have to go back! The Flash needs to be warned about the Reverse Flash!”

_Impossible. You cannot simply “go back”. The Flash and the Yellow Man only pass through momentarily. Anyone who is actually standing in my space can never leave. Especially with an injury such as yours. Even if the Flash changes time, you will always end back here with that same hole in your chest and with no memory of our encounter before._

His face contorted with grief. It was a look she had seen so many times. Inwardly, she sighed, marking this encounter as their fortieth. She _could_ allow this moment to continue – often times, it was so lonely, living here by herself, and the boy seemed to provide some comfort.

“But I can’t just stay here. If there is a chance to help the Flash, I’m going to take it.” Resolved, the boy picked a direction and began walking.

 _A fruitless gesture._ She reached out to touch his shoulder but decided against it. _Do you think you are simply going to walk out of here? You could walk for eternity and still end up nowhere, not unless I allow you to be somewhere._

“Then help me.” He stopped. “You could fill this hole in my chest, and when everything’s all squared away, I’ll let you put me back in here.”

Ah, _there_ was the proposal. Of all forty encounters, more than half had refused to ask for her help, choosing instead to scream and curse at her until she allowed to leave out of sheer annoyance. The rare few were brave and smart enough to ask for her help.

In all instances, she had staunchly refused. Someone who died with a hole in his chest was just meant to stay dead – that was what reality wanted. Even someone as progressively endearing as this child had an unfortunate destiny that should _not_ be avoided.

“Dude, you’re an all powerful being! I mean, going off my belief that this is the afterlife and all, you clearly have the power to make me dead again!” Truthfully, the logic this boy spouted was confusing every time he said it. “Just pop me back to do my business and take me away again!”

Perhaps it was the look on his face that finally broke her. Perhaps it was her loneliness that pushed her. There could be a whole number of reasons why she said yes, but above all, this child’s unyielding spirit held her attention.  

_What is your name, child?_

He grinned. “Cisco. My name’s Cisco.”


	2. Chapter 2

_She had not intended for him to develop his gift any further. A simple resurrection, a simple filling of a heart destroyed by the Yellow Man, and then she would allow him to live his life without new interference._

_Yet, never would she believe that he would come to her._

“So if Reverb could open breaches, then it stands to reason that I can.” Cisco shivered at the power behind that statement. “I…I didn’t ask for this.”

“It’s the only way to get to Zoom. To rescue the masked man,” Barry said as Harry watched them with pressed lips. “We closed all the breaches, Cisco. You’re the only person who can get us back there.”

Ever so subtly, the speedster scooted the goggles towards him. Reverb’s gear – Cisco had taken it off his doppelganger and brought it back home, as an attempt to study it to further his own prototype.

“I…I can’t.”

“But you can,” Barry insisted, a slight urgency in his voice despite his best attempt to hide it. The rebuttal came off as a near whine. “Cisco. You’re the only one who can access the multiverse.”

“Then get someone else! _Find_ someone else! I’m sorry…I…I just can’t access it!” He pushed back the goggles and rushed out of the workroom. There was no need to turn back and see Barry’s disappointed face – he could physically feel it clawing into his body, settling over his bones like a snug blanket.

He ducked into one of the labs’ storage room and locked the door.

“Oh god, oh god. _Dios mio._ ” The boy sank to the floor, back against the wall, running his fingers through his hair as a panic attack began to surface.

The image was already there. Zoom, in a flash of blue lightning, a vibrating hand slicing through clothes, skin, and muscle. Phantom fingers wormed into his beating chest, clutching his heart.

He wanted to rip off his skin, scratch off the constant throbbing in his blood. _Hate_ …he hated that his body persistently felt like someone else was living in it, that there was this bottomless well of power underneath.

That he could access it whenever he wanted to.

All those superhero stories were true – power _was_ corruptive. Reverb’s fall, his decision to follow Zoom and then to usurp him, everything was very much clear. Before Earth-2, he had approached his newfound ability with curiosity, with the thought he could _actually_ do good with his precognition. Now, after seeing Reverb attack Barry like that, after hearing that his ability could, no, _would_ evolve into potential nerve-shattering blasts, he could see what his metahuman power was:

A curse.

“Cisco?”

“I can’t help you, Barry!” he wheezed. “Please, just leave me alone.”

“You know that I’m not going to leave until you come out.”

He let out an exasperated laugh. If he ever needed a breach, it would be now.

“Look…I don’t want to force you into something that you don’t want to do,” Barry said. “No…it was wrong of me to rope you into something dangerous.”

“Danger was something I signed up for when I first worked at STAR Labs,” he returned with a dry laugh. “I…I never asked for this. I never wanted powers. I never wanted to be more than ordinary.”

“None of us wanted this. Hell, my life would have been much simpler without evil speedsters crossing worlds just to get my speed,” his friend answered. “But Zoom is still out there, and it’s my duty to go and face him. I have to, Cisco, and if you don’t want to, that’s fine. Harry’s working on a possible breach opener.”

They lapsed into a brief silence.

“Okay, I’m coming out.”  He stood, reaching out to open the door.

Barry observed him from where he stood, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” the speedster asked.

“It’s just…this power, it’s something that I can’t explain. That I don’t _want_ to explain.” He glanced down at his hands. “I don’t know how you feel with the Speed Force running through you, but what I have feels like something’s burning. It’s like Anakin from _Star Wars_. The Force was strong in him…it’s strong, _too_ strong, in me.”

He watched as blue tendrils – invisible to everyone but him – pulled from his skin, wrapping around his fingers.

“It’s like I’m walking around with two loaded guns,” he whispered. “Two loaded guns that could go off at any second. I’m…I’m scared.”

Barry stepped forward, clapping his hands onto his shoulders. “Look, if this doesn’t work, then I’ll officially stop asking you to do this.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

* * *

He put on the goggles, extending his hand out again.

_Do you want to do this?_

Cisco startled, dropping his hand, looking at his fingers.

 _I am the multiverse, the power you hate,_ she answered to his silent question. “ _Two loaded guns”. You do not need to do this. If you desire no more contact, I will no longer speak._

“No, don’t leave me.”

_If you decide to do this, we will forever be linked. The burning you feel under your skin will consume you. I will become you, and you will become me. I am the multiverse, and you will be too – any damage to me, and you will suffer._

“Why are you telling me this?”

_To be sure. Now tell me, why do you want my power?_

He did not want that. He wanted…he wanted…

_What do you want, my child?_

“To help,” he whispered. “I want to help.”

His answer proved a calming balm, a sigh of relief. This boy would not be like the others who had asked for her power before. He would not be Reverb.

_Close your hand and let me take care of the rest._

The boy extended his hand again, making a fist. She let out another sigh, breathing down the length of his arm, pooling her strength into his fingers.

A breach opened before the three mortals, widening as their tentative connection truly solidified. On the other side, the Blue Man waited impatiently, body sparking with her stolen speed.

Let that demon come to this world.

Her son was ready.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone reading this fic! 
> 
> From when Cisco first opens a breach, the moment when he looked at his fingers and made me wonder about what he was looking at. Actual events altered to suit this fic.


End file.
